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Why Home-Ed.?

Our reasons to home educate, rather than to use traditional schooling, can be divided into 3 categories:

· Learning

· Social

· Lifestyle and family

Why H.E. leads to a better learning experience

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Hands on learning

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Many of the advantages of learning at home are possible due to the one to one nature of H.E. Learning can be targeted to the childrens' needs in a way which would be impossible in the large classes found in the school system. In a classroom even the best teacher cannot focus solely on the individual; their needs, interests and skills. At best lessons are aimed at the average, often at the lowest level. Classrooms are the model of teachers teaching and children passively receiving learning. Conversely, learning that occurs mostly on a one to one basis can provide a shared experience where each individual, the child and the parent, has equal rights to contribute and decide the course that learning will take.

One to one learning allows the childrens' needs to be met, and the content of the learning to be relevant and interesting for that child, by:

Presenting learning in the child’s preferred learning style

Presenting learning at an appropriate level

Keeping an appropriate pace of learning

Providing rests and breaks when needed

Providingrepetition when needed

Providing challenge and extension when needed

Allowing children to stop when they have had enough

Allowing children tocarry on with a topic as long as they wish

Allowing children to follow tangents

Allowing children to take exams early or late

Learning with love

Being child led

Following the child’s interests

Allowing flexibility to follow interests without rigid plans

Enabling the learner to learn what they wish to learn not what they are told to learn (it is debatable that you can make someone learn something that they have no interest in anyway)

Encouraging learningthrough conversation

Providing time to question

Giving permission to question

The ability to give instant feedback

Allowing more diversity than government prescribed curricula

Giving opportunity to specialise

Presenting a whole learning experience not a set of disjointed subject lessons

H.E. allows us as parents to provide a much more natural social experience for the children, one which reflects the true nature of society not he institutionalised version displayed in schools. Many of the undesirable social aspects of school, such as bullying, can be more easily managed, or even eliminated, as we will be both more aware of any problem, having close contact with the children daily, and be empowered to either remove the problem or remove the child from it. From our experiences, a great deal of time is spent/wasted controlling the unruly element of the class, further reducing the time actually spent teaching and therefore learning. Children will have ample opportunity to learn from others who are more experienced, and they will pick up family values.

H.E. provides a better social experience by:

Allowing the children to choose who to be social with

Allowing the children to choose when to be social

Having conversations without restriction

Allowing time to be quite/alone

Making it possible for the childrens' social circle to be more representative of real society in terms of different ages, genders, backgrounds and cultures.

Learning about real not institutionalised life

Providing learning from more experienced individuals not similarly inexperienced peers (e.g. children do not learn how to behave in a new situation from 30 other children of the same age who equally inexperienced, but from adults or others who have previous experience).

We didn’t become parents in order to hand our children over to strangers for the majority of the day. We enjoy being with our children, because nothing is more fascinating than watching your children learn. We believe the school routine destroys family life and does not cater for the physical and emotional needs of the child.

H.E. makes a strong family by

Allowing the Daddy to spend time with the children whilst doing shift work

4 comments:

I think it is wonderful that some parents are willing to take on the challenge of their children education. I'm sure it is a rewarding experience and I agree with many of the points above. I love the idea that you want to spend so much time with your children and of course they will have a much better experience than a mainstream school.I can see that you are totally committed this and I wish you all the luck with it. I am a teacher in England and while I cannot offer anything like the interactive curriculum that you do, I try my best (33 kids, lots of issues). I think the home education system is only effective if the parents are as dedicated as you are, Many of the children I work with would have little or no education if left with their parents all day ("I don't have time to read with them at night, it takes too long!" - comment by a parent when asked to read with her child for 10 minutes once a week.) In these cases I think mainstream is a much better option, I may not have the time to spend with each individual but at least I want to spend time with them and plan learning so that the children can access it.

Thanks! I actually taught primary level in the UK so I know exactly what you mean. School is the best option for many, home education is the best option for many others. It's just a shame that lots of people don't know that the option exists or that many others are also doing it and that there is lots of support and social opportunity out there.

We still take an active interest in your blog! Been missing your links on FB. Is there a reason you've disapeared off it? I find your blog absolutely fascinating. Andrew (Banks)would home educate Emily if he didn't have to work but she does seem to like school - well mostly.

How do you know which is the best option for the child school or home ed? Do some children do well in either?